Chenell Basilio — The state of email in 2026, growing your list without social media, and new predictions.

**Jay Clouse** (0:00)
I know you're not gonna want to answer this, but we're gonna do it anyway.

**Chenell Basilio** (0:02)
Oh boy.

**Jay Clouse** (0:03)
Kiss, Marry, Kill.

**Chenell Basilio** (0:04)
Okay.

**Jay Clouse** (0:05)
Kit, Substack and Beehive.

**Chenell Basilio** (0:07)
Oh boy. Oh, you're not gonna make me do this, are you?

**Jay Clouse** (0:10)
I'll do it if you do it.
Hello, my friend, welcome back to another episode of Creator Science. This week, I am joined by my good friend, Chenell Basilio. Chenell is the creator of Growth in Reverse, a newsletter that reverse-engineers how top creators grow their newsletters from zero to more than 50,000 email subscribers. She spends 20 to 25 hours per deep dive researching one creator, making her one of the most thorough newsletter analysts in the space. Chenell's writing is great. I believe I was the first subscriber to Growth in Reverse, and I will hold on to that as a claim to fame. She has a background in paid ads actually since 2012, 2013, and that gives her a really unique data-driven lens because she understands both organic and paid growth. So, Chenell is definitely one of the voices you should be listening to about email and newsletters. In this episode, we give our predictions for what is working and what is to come in email in 2026 We talk about referral programs, recommendations, how you would grow if you do not want to use social media, and some of the biggest opportunities you can grow if you are interested in social media. I also introduced a new section into this episode called Unhinged Questions. That's fun. That's towards the end. I hope you enjoyed this one as much as I enjoyed recording it. If you do enjoy it, feel free to tag me at Jay Clouse and let me know, or if you're on Spotify, leave a comment. I love reading those comments. We'll do that full episode with Chenell right after this. I think the most obvious place to start is to ask how it feels to be the reigning champion of our inaugural Fantasy Football League in the Lab.

**Chenell Basilio** (2:02)
I have the little trophy right over here. It's fantastic.

**Jay Clouse** (2:06)
So good. Oh man, I love that it's in the video frame. That's great.

**Chenell Basilio** (2:10)
It didn't fully fit on the shelf.

**Jay Clouse** (2:12)
I'm not salty about it at all.

**Chenell Basilio** (2:14)
Yes, you are. But that's okay. You can't win the first league. It would just be too obvious that you were fudging it a little bit.

**Jay Clouse** (2:21)
Well, let's talk all things email, let's talk all things newsletter. I have a handful of different ways in to talk about this, but we're sitting here at the end of January, 2026 and I'd love to just get a vibe check, a pulse check on how you feel about email. Do you think it's growing in importance? Do you think it's shrinking in importance? Where are we in the life cycle or hype cycle of email right now?

**Chenell Basilio** (2:47)
It's a good question. I think it's maturing for sure. Obviously, email has been around forever, so me saying maturing is kind of comical, but in this newsletter hype cycle, I feel like we're maturing in a way that people are realizing you need more than just a newsletter to actually build a successful business with it. I mean, there are caveats to this, of course, but I would say for 90% of people, it's going to be more than email, whether that's incorporating YouTube or like your own digital products versus just having like a regular newsletter that's you're making money via sponsorships. I think it's definitely maturing in that sense, but I still think email is pretty much king at this point. Of course, there are platforms that are also important, but email is very, very up at the top for me.

**Jay Clouse** (3:29)
I feel like the newsletter, quote unquote, hype has died down a little bit. You know, I mean, email's been a thing for forever, but I feel like there was distinctly a 12 to 24 month period where newsletters in particular were so hot and everyone was starting a beehive or a substack and it was like a big thing. And I don't hear that nearly as much right now, I don't think.

**Chenell Basilio** (3:52)
Yeah, I'd agree with you. Everyone got really excited about the idea, especially, this is funny to think back on, I didn't realize it, but like right after the NFT thing kind of died down, like people were like, newsletters. And so all the AI newsletters came out, NFT newsletters, crypto, all that stuff. And so I think people just kind of like stayed and were hoping to build another milk road, for example. But obviously that is not as easy or as common as people probably thought. And so I think a lot of people are kind of jumping to the next thing at this point, which I'm all for, because just keep all the people that are consistent with it in the space and go do something else.